Youths skill as shepherd lead to settlement in New Zealand On the quays of Aberdeen in the year 1860, as a braw 18 year old boy, David Gordon attracted the attention of onlookers by the manner in which he handled a small mop of sheep, owned by the farmer in whose household he had the status of hind. One of the strangers called him over. "We are sending sheep to a faraway place. Would you take charge of them on the voyage?" he asked, adding an outline of the terms of this employment. Young Gordon did not jump at the change, for the faraway place was New Zealand, and that was a long way indeed from his sweetheart, Jane Watson. Jane had not named the day as yet, and Gordon feared that she might not wait for him if he sailed off to the other side of the world. But Jane won the consent of her parents to an immediate marriage. She felt that a mere youth would need looking after in the distant colonies. After their marriage David went on to supervise the loading of the 1060 border Leicester sheep, mostly ewes, entrusted to his care for the voyage. All he had to do was to protect the sheep from harm on the voyage, and to deliver the survivors to agents in the South Island on arrival in New Zealand. He had been warned of the special care required by a passage through the topics, but long before the ship neared the Equator, David and his wife were anxiously considering how they would fare among the savage natives in their new home. FEARED HARM They had heard of the experiences of Imperial soldiers and sailors on the New Zealand islands, and each feared that the other might come to harm at the hand of Maoris. But all their apprehensions proved to be unfounded. They completed the long sea journey within the six months which was almost standard time for a good voyage. They bore without serious inconvenience the long, slow days during which the ship lay like a long in the calm sea, and hardly a ripple showed upon the water or the sails which hung from the yard-arms. Jane Gordon saw that her husband continued in good health and David tended his sheep could be landed the ships master had to make port, and the choice of ports in the south was not wide. LANDFALL The landfall finally was at the Bluff, where ship and sheep parted company, David and Jane Gordon making due delivery of the flock to an agent who awaited anxiously the Scottish livestock. Once Mrs Gordon had satisfied herself about the peaceful character of the southern Maoris, she and her husband sought employment on farms and were quickly suited. David took a ploughman's wage, and they lived in a lean-to but which was the accepted ploughman's accommodation. The Gordons had left Scotland in October, 1860, and their departure was well timed to escape the hard winter of their Scottish birthplace. It brought them to New Zealand at a time when the Southern Alps were covered with snow and down around Southland the night and day temperatures were low. But the weather was of little concern to the new comers, hardened as they were to a rigorous climate. A new interest had come in to their lives, with the prospect of parenthood. Their first child, David was born on February 18, 1862. LARGE FAMILY The advent of David, junior, marked the beginning of a family building progression which in the following 20 years was to add 14 sons and daughters in all. Three other babies failed to survive, and these are not recorded by name in the family albums. Jane, the mother of all these children, had little assistance with any of her deliveries, save that which her husband learned to administer. A woman of great, the mother of all young Gordons faced successive ordeals calmly and on occasion managed entirely on her own. Of the children who lived, the second-born was Alick, whose birth on September 15, 1864, was followed by that of the first three girls. She received her mothers name, of course and in later years she cheerfully bore the responsibilities which devolved on the family's eldest girl child. The late-sixties added Andrew, William, and John to the growing muster of the Gordons, and thereafter the family was increased progressively. The order of the arrivals was Charles (1870), Robert (1873), Thomas (1873), Maggie (1875), James (1876), George (1877), Sarah (1880), and Harry (1881)